Kim calls on church to be ‘mutually submissive’

The Rev. Jin Kim got a warm welcome Wednesday night when he spoke at the Multicultural Church Celebration at the 219th General Assembly (2010).

“Presbyterian policy is mutual submission,” Kim said. “Submission is a gift from God.”

Noting that he believes the denomination’s ordination standards and definition of marriage should remain unchanged, Kim said he holds a “cultural definition of Scripture.”

But that doesn’t mean he is right. “I put God in my cultural box,” he said. “What I’m against is certitude.”

And that’s what makes him a Presbyterian. “If we’re penitentially submissive, we can hold together as a Presbyterian church,” Kim said.

In the long run, it’s a basic truth about Presbyterian foundations. “I trust God. God is sovereign,” Kim said. “You know what’s great about being Presbyterian is that everything is God’s will.

Kim, who had stood for Moderator of the Assembly, is pastor of the PC(USA) Church of All Nations, where more than 60 percent of the members are non-Euro-American. The church started with a 90-percent Korean base in 2004.

He quoted from Philippians 4:10-14: “For I have learned to be content with whatever I have. … In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.”

Speaking of the election for Moderator, Kim said he accepted the result as “God’s gift and God’s grace.” He added, “It doesn’t mean that God abandoned me; it means that God has another plan.”